


Under the Starry Sky

by Eustacia Vye (eustaciavye)



Category: Firefly
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-15
Updated: 2010-06-15
Packaged: 2017-10-10 03:28:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/94971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eustaciavye/pseuds/Eustacia%20Vye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jayne stood outside his boyhood home and looked up at the stars. He used to think they were so amazing, but he knew better now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Under the Starry Sky

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the "stroke" box on my [hc_bingo](http://community.livejournal.com/hc_bingo/) card.

River knew before Jayne did, but that was the nature of her gift. She had grasped Jayne's arm, eyes wide. "She hurts," River murmured. "We need to be there." Jayne only understood when Mattie's wave arrived. His mother suffered a massive stroke and was paralyzed. Mattie didn't know what to do, and he needed Jayne's help.

They weren't on a job, but Jayne couldn't ask the others to help him. There wasn't even a discussion, though; Mal told River to point them to Beylix only to find out that she had already put in the coordinates and they were on the way.

Vera had always been such a strong figure in the Cobb household, especially after her husband died. Jayne couldn't imagine her ill, let alone dying. Somehow he'd always thought she'd spit in Death's eye and send him packing. But she was so small and fragile lying on the bed when Jayne arrived, and it was suddenly all too real. She was only mortal, only a woman, and she was ill. She was weak, and the doctors didn't give her much longer to live.

"There's my Jayne," Vera said, noticing him hovering in the doorway. "Goodness, you look just like your father like that. Come here. I haven't seen you in ages."

Her voice was weaker than he remembered, and he sat down heavily beside her. "Mam."

"Tell me about this boat. They're awful nice, taking time out for you like family."

It clicked then, and Jayne nodded. "Yeah. Like that." And the stories poured out of him, only partly censored for her benefit. With Mal's crew, he hadn't had to censor himself quite so much. Vera smiled in all the right places, clutched at his hand weakly in others. Mattie wandered in sometime during his storytelling, just as engaged as Vera. Mattie was the weaker one physically, but he was the smart one. Jayne had been the one to do all the physical work and he had left home early. It had been his way to take care of things, but of course it didn't out the way he'd expected it to.

That evening, Jayne stood outside his boyhood home and looked up at the stars. He used to think they were so amazing, but he knew better now.

River slipped beside him and touched his hand gently. "You care for her very much."

"She's my Mam," Jayne said tiredly. He didn't have the strength to make fun of her, and she was being too sane and nice to him at the moment.

"The hurt stopped." River slipped her hand around Jayne's and gave it a squeeze. She seemed to be trying to cut herself off deliberately, so that her words wouldn't get so convoluted. "She missed you, Jayne. She wanted nearness and closeness as she felt mortality. Your absence pained her."

"Weren't my fault, none of it," Jayne replied, shaking his head. "I did what got to be done."

"This is not in blame," River chided gently. "It's explanation. She understood all you couldn't say." She looked up at the stars along with Jayne. "I wish my own was as capable. But we do not get what we wish for, only what Buddha sees fit to give us."

River was being remarkably sane, and it was almost creepifying. Almost. Her words were soothing, and she was talking _to_ him, not _at_ him. The others tip toed around him, as if he was the fragile one, as if he was made of spun glass and would break.

"Tell me what you remember," River said, voice gentle.

At some point, he slung an arm around her shoulders when she shivered in the cold. But he told her about his mother's amazing apple pies, the way she could stitch a line better than any machine, the way she was patient when Mattie got sick, the way she stood ramrod straight at his father's funeral. He had been a miner, and the shaft had collapsed. His father's body had never been found, and Vera had stood straight and tall, looked everyone in the eye, had thanked them for their good wishes and kept right on going. "'S why I named my very best gun for her," Jayne admitted, feeling sheepish for saying it aloud. "She don't break when times get tough."

"This is good in a mother," River said. She turned around in his half embrace and looped her arms around his chest. "She is a good woman. The doctors here are not well versed in such things, but this is not a death sentence. She has reason enough to live, reason enough to continue to struggle. You give her reason."

"Yeah, but..." Jayne disentangled himself from her. "She ain't the same. I can't do nothing for her. You know? What've I got to give her in a time like this? What can I do for her? I'm just a sorry _hun dan_ that can shoot. And even that, in time I won't got that neither."

River cocked her head to the side. "You are her son. Is this contingent on your ability to shoot?"

Lips pressed together in frustration, Jayne wished he could hit something. He wished he could do _something,_ anything. Maybe River was right and his mother wouldn't be dead within the year like the doctors seemed to think. But he couldn't do anything to stop it. He couldn't make time move backward so his mother would be hale and whole. He was stupid, besides. What kind of son was he, that he never got any kind of book learning enough to make sure he could support his mother if she got sick? He'd never even considered this possibility before.

"Come spar with me," River said, pulling him from his thoughts. "There is light enough for our needs."

Confused but still eager for a fight, Jayne followed her onto the front lawn. He didn't know much besides fighting, and now that the bravado was all gone, he didn't know how to do the right thing if nothing clearly was the right thing.

They fell into an easy stance and began to move. They'd practiced on _Serenity's_ hold a few times, and they each knew each others' styles. He'd taught her more about guns and tracking in the years after Miranda and she stopped being quite so crazy, and she'd taught him something about patience. Maybe. His moves weren't as clean as they usually were, and he thought at one point that he should find a knife to even up the odds a bit. But she was a whirlwind and he couldn't even think about going back into the house for the weapons he had left there. Jayne kept going long after he initially wanted to stop, until he had fallen to his knees.

River fell to her knees gracefully beside him. She placed a hand on his shoulder and stared at him in silence, her eyes large and luminous in the starlight. She didn't say a word, but somehow that was all right. It was a comfort to push through the anger and helplessness he felt, the utter uselessness in this situation. There were no words for a time like this. Or, there shouldn't have been. Vera wasn't dead yet, but it felt like he was mourning her already, grieving the life she'd already lost. At some point, he started to cry, and River merely sat there with him, her hands on his shoulders, her head bowed beside his. She didn't offer him any stupid platitudes or tell him it would be okay. It wouldn't, not the way strangers always made it sound. This was his _mother,_ and she needed more now than he thought he could ever be able to give. It wasn't right to burden his brother with this, too.

"We each have our own gifts," River whispered when his tears slowed. "Sometimes we don't even know what they are. But we have them."

Jayne looked up at her solemn expression. "I'm just a merc. I can't do nothing for her."

"Sometimes being with her is enough. Others run scared in the face of what they don't understand. Or feign concern for illness. It's something special to be there in the thick of it and not run."

He nodded. "Thanks. For not runnin', I mean." She nodded, a soft smile on her face. "Lookit, don't tell nobody. I'm a mean sumbitch. I don't cry, _dong ma?"_

River brushed her fingers over his face. "I will cry enough for you." She locked her eyes to his. "I have tears enough to share with you. It would not be so misplaced for me to be upset. But she is not gone yet, and you are stronger than you think you are. Help isn't always physical."

He realized suddenly that she'd had her own problems not that long ago. He'd felt shame enough around her in the beginning, for thinking of her in dollar amounts and not sense. He'd deciphered her own brand of logic after Miranda, and they'd almost become friends as a result. "I'm sorry," he said abruptly, getting to his feet awkward. She floated to her feet, a fluid roll that he could never imitate. "I didn't mean..."

"I know. Others never do."

Jayne looked up at the stars with a gusty sigh. "Things were simple when I left. They ain't so simple now."

"No. But with a course correction, you'll fly true again. As we all do."

He looked back down at her with a half smile. "She likes you, Mam does. Maybe you can tell her the story of the ballerina girl? I didn't get it right in my letters home." Jayne felt almost shy. "I'd like to hear it again, too."

River took hold of his hand firmly. "Of course. I like telling it. It sounds very simple on the surface of things. It actually has a moral to it, you know."

In mock horror, Jayne gaped at her. "No."

She laughed delightedly and led him into the house. "I'll tell you both in the morning. For the moment, my Jayne, you have need of slumber. You'll dream, but I'll protect your dreams for you." She gave his hand a squeeze. "Time will help, Jayne. You'll see."

For the moment, he almost could.

End.


End file.
